


In Bitter Winter's Hands

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Healing from trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage of Convenience, Past Abuse, Slow Burn, Supportive Relationships, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:41:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Sansa Bolton would give just about anything to leave her terrible husband if not for the fact that she knows she can't get far enough outside his sphere of influence to keep from being dragged right back. That is, until the day Theon Greyjoy appears in her regular coffee shop with a secret message just for her. Jon Snow has learned about her situation, and he has a plan. There are preservation laws for Free Folk culture that prevent "stolen brides" from being removed from their spouses when Westerosi law comes to call. Jon has a friend with two daughters who is willing to steal her if she'll only agree to be there as a grounding presence in his children's lives. A husband that Jon trusts is surely better than the hell her life has become.
Relationships: Tormund Giantsbane/Sansa Stark, past Ramsay Bolton/Sansa Stark - Relationship
Comments: 29
Kudos: 90





	1. Hoarfrost

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Dresupi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi) for being such an incredible beta and general great human who's been listening to me ramble about this for months. 
> 
> A thousand cookies to [klr_katze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klr_katze), who was my roommate when I first had this idea and patiently listened to me rant it out while I was only dressed in a towel because I stomped straight from the shower to the living room with a shout of "I'VE HAD THE BEST SANSA/TORMUND IDEA AND YOU HAVE TO HEAR IT".
> 
> And so many hugs to the entire wonderful group of folks in Dresupi's NaNo Discord chat for 2020 who were unbelievably supportive while I banged most of this out in November.

_ ~*~*~*~*~*~ _

**hoar·frost**

/ˈhôrˌfrôst/

_noun_

a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.

_ ~*~*~*~*~*~ _

At the bottom of a hill beneath what was once the great medieval fortress known as Dreadfort, in the midst of the city that now bore that fortress’s name, was the charming neighborhood of Hollowstone. It was populated by the upper class: massive houses on spacious lots surrounded by tall hedges and fences. The residential streets were laid out like the spokes of a wheel, radiating in all directions. At the center of it all was Bloodstone Row—a three-block stretch of road with quaint shops and restaurants on both sides. Halfway down the first block, tucked between a family-owned butcher shop and a narrow alley separating it from the bookstore next door was a coffee shop called Marshmallow Snow.

The shop itself was a brick building with wide windows and rounded awnings the color of fresh cream. A wooden sign in the shape of a teacup with a curling handle dangled high above the door, proclaiming the shop’s name to any who might be traveling the sidewalk in a way that wouldn’t let them see the elegantly painted logos on the windows. 

At a table near the back, not close enough to the windows to draw outside attention but clearly visible to anyone driving by who knew exactly where to look, Mrs. Sansa Bolton sat sipping from a mug of hot chocolate. Her laptop was open on the table, a word processor taking up the screen. She wasn’t exactly focusing on the document before her, staring vaguely into the distance instead. The table was hers, clearly marked by a folded piece of white cardstock every Monday through Friday from noon until four in the afternoon. It had been her table for the better part of the last two years, and no matter how many times the young teenagers who made up the shop’s workforce changed as the kids went back to school or moved away to college they always made sure to keep the table free and the bakery case stocked with lemon cakes just for her.

Everyone in Hollowstone knew about Sansa Bolton. They knew about the unpleasant business with her family—poor girl. They knew that her husband’s stepmother and younger half-brother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances shortly after the death of his father, leaving him the sole heir to the late Mr. Bolton’s fortune. They even knew, though no one would dare to say it aloud, that Mrs. Bolton’s life was rigorously controlled by her husband, Ramsay. That control had reached the point that she was required to be at that exact table at the coffee shop every weekday unless she’d rather face the alternative of never being allowed out of the house alone.

It was hard not to feel sorry for a woman in her circumstances, or to wonder how she had come to be in those circumstances to begin with. Rumor had it that Sansa had come from an old-money family of her own. No one, though, was willing to risk catching her husband’s attention to ask for the details. So, they did what little they could. Kind smiles. Favorite cakes. Nothing more.

On this particular Wednesday morning, Sansa was struggling to put words on the page. Her weekday visits to Marshmallow Snow were a privilege she’d fought hard to gain. She’d endured a great deal of unpleasantness in the fight to get that little bit of freedom, and normally just being able to be out of the foreboding, gated home she shared with her husband was a balm that boosted her creativity tenfold. However, today the knowledge that she would be going right back to the house she hated when her afternoon of work was done weighed heavily on her mind. Aside from the brief chit-chat she shared with the barista every day when she came into the shop she couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d had a real conversation with another human being. 

She’d read somewhere once that escaping the worst situations in life required money. It wasn’t entirely wrong, but it did lead to the assumption that if you had money there was nothing else to get in your way. Sansa had money. There was an account with the Iron Bank in her name alone that contained a tidy sum. Aside from the Iron Bank’s employees (who were notoriously tight-lipped) only Sansa and one other person knew about her little nest egg. Westerosi law dictated that all shared assets had to be declared at the time of marriage. Since he’d never known of its existence and she hadn’t bothered to declare the account a shared asset, there was no way her bastard of a husband could take those funds from her. She didn’t have enough to live in the lap of luxury, but she could be more than comfortable. 

Only, money just wasn’t enough to escape Ramsay Bolton. He was too well-connected, and she had too few friends.

She could flee south to the Reach. Her editor—Margaery Tyrell, the woman who’d insisted that Sansa set up the secret account before she’d tied the knot—had told her multiple times she’d help her move. She could get a little apartment. Find another cafe to write in when she didn’t feel like writing at home. Start to build a life for herself again while pursuing a divorce. 

And then Ramsay would bribe the police to say they’d never seen evidence of abuse. Or he would skip the police and be waiting in her new apartment when she came home. Or, the most terrifying option, he would find a way to have her claims of abuse be declared a psychotic break. He’d lock her away and then when the doctors ‘cleared’ her no one would ever believe such allegations again. He’d told her so many possibilities of how he could handle any attempts to leave. Even though she’d taken no steps in that direction he made sure to tell her how futile it would be, as though he could see the thoughts looming at the back of her mind. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had the whole of her family’s trust at her back. Money wasn’t going to help her get out of being Mrs. Ramsay Bolton without the intervention of people. She needed help and not just someone to take her side and help her move. She needed people who weren’t easily scared and who could come up with some way that he couldn’t touch her. 

If things were different, she would have found a way to get in touch with what family she had left, but they didn’t want to hear from her. She hadn’t spoken to any of them since her parents’ and Robb’s funerals. Her siblings had told her literary agent quite clearly that she wasn’t welcome in their lives. Being so alone was part of why she’d agreed to marry Ramsay in the first place. She’d been so sure she didn’t have anything to lose. She’d been a young, lonely, naive fool. 

The chair across from her seat was dragged away from the table, and a man just a few years older than her dropped into the seat. Sansa blinked at him owlishly over the top of her mug, taking longer than she’d care to admit to sort out the reality of being joined by someone in her usual spot. No one ever sat with her. Ramsay’s wrath was notorious in Hollowstone. 

It took her an embarrassing amount of time to recognize Theon Greyjoy.

He’d filled out in the year and a half since she’d last seen him, the gaunt figure he’d cut then was now covered over with lean muscle. His hair brushed the edges of his jaw, curls that were once wild and ragged tempered by care and a good cut. The scraggly beard she remembered was trimmed close, lending an elegant shadow to his face instead of the unkempt mess he’d worn before. There was warmth in his eyes.

“Hello, Sansa,” he said simply. 

“Theon,” she breathed. Her heart was pounding, a dull ache building at the base of her skull. If Ramsay knew that he was back in town… “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Easy.” He spoke gently, the tone reminiscent of their childhood when he’d helped her soothe spooked horses in the family stables. “Your table sits at an angle. Your chair is the only one that can be seen from the windows.”

She knew he was right. That was part of the reason why her chair was her chair. The tight knot in her chest loosened but didn’t altogether disappear. “If he finds you…” She didn’t elaborate. Theon knew.

“He won’t.” There was steel in his gaze, but she could see the memories fluttering behind his eyes. He wouldn’t take this risk if he weren’t sure. When he spoke next his voice was quiet enough that only she would hear. “Trust me.” 

One of the shop’s staff members came to the table and placed a mug of coffee in front of him. He beamed up at the girl, thanking her graciously. When she turned to leave them once more he turned the smile on Sansa. It quickly morphed into a mischievous grin.

“I’ve missed you, Sansa.” His voice was loud enough to be overheard now, as bright and cheerful as anyone who might have unexpectedly stumbled on an old friend. He took a sip of his coffee. “How have you been? Still keeping Ramsay out of trouble?”

Sansa wasn’t stupid. She knew how to take a cue, and it barely took a beat before she realized what Theon was doing. With a deep breath, she launched into a bevy of small talk, drawing on all the courtesies her mother had instilled in her when she was a child. They chit-chatted for ten minutes that felt like an hour, covering topics from the dreary northern weather as winter grew closer to the memories of her wedding. Theon described it as though it was a beautiful, happy affair—just like Ramsay always did. It made her cocoa taste like ash in her mouth, but she smiled through it, nodding along and laughing in all the right places. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he seemed to be satisfied that they were being convincing enough.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, thunking his coffee on the table in his enthusiasm to start digging into the pocket of his jeans. “I’ve got to show you my nephew!” He pulled a smartphone in its case from the pocket and started swiping over the screen. “Yara’s got herself deeply in love, and the poor girl has a son from her late husband. He’s as precious as can be.” Seemingly finding what he was looking for, Theon produced a pair of earbuds, plugged them into the phone, and passed the whole thing across the table to her. “Make sure you put the earbuds in. He’s barely doing that jabbering thing that babies do, and it’s hard to hear how cute he sounds without them.”

“Well, I can’t possibly miss adorable baby noises,” Sansa laughed, her heart pounding. Whatever was on the phone was the real reason Theon had sought her out. She carefully fitted the earbuds into her ears and pushed the volume up button on the sides of the phone to be sure she’d be able to hear.

A video was loaded on the phone’s screen, and when she pushed play Sansa was treated to the sight of an adorable toddler. He had copper-dusted skin and thick dark hair. He was hopping around the deck of a boat on a stick horse, gurgling in that cute baby kind of way. She could hear two women talking to him with encouragement from behind the camera, their voices fond.

Then, the sounds faded away. The video played on, but Theon’s voice murmured in her ears once more.

“Whatever you do, keep reacting to the video as though it’s just baby stuff,” he insisted. “You and I both know why.”

She pasted a fond smile on her face a bare instant before another voice made her heart stop.

“Sansa. It’s Jon.” He sounded just like she remembered, but with a tinge of something rough beneath what had been boyish enthusiasm all those years ago. A lump rose in her throat, tears pricking at the back of her eyes. “Theon came through Hardhome with his sister on a supply delivery. He told me everything about you and your  _ husband _ .” There was venom on the word  _ husband _ , an anger she never would have thought sweet, doting Jon could possess. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I think I can get you out. It won’t be easy, and it’ll mean you have to live here. North of the Wall. With the Free Folk.”

His sigh was audible before he continued. “There’s some protections for their culture. The Free Folk, they can take wives from below the Wall. Steal them, if we’re technical. Doesn’t matter if they were married by the laws of Westeros. If the wife says she was willing when the Westerosi government comes to call they legally cannot make her go back.” He cleared his throat. “There’s more to it, explanations I can give in more detail later, but the important thing is that it would mean Ramsay couldn’t touch you. It’s different here. There’s no one that would bend to the kind of man he is. A friend of mine has two daughters without a mother. He could use a nanny, and he’s volunteered to be the one to steal you. He’s a good man, and I trust him with my life.”

“Your family will always be here for you, Sansa. I don’t know why… It doesn’t matter.” His voice grew rough, almost choked, before he cleared his throat. “If you want out, tell Theon to come back and visit sometime. That’s the signal. He’ll get word to us, and I’ll come with my friend to steal you away as soon as we can make the arrangements.”

There was a pause. The little boy on the screen stumbled, dropped his stick horse, flopped to the ground, and started to cry. The camera jostled as the phone recording the incident was passed from one hand to another, and a woman with white-blonde hair styled in intricate braids rushed forward to the child.

“I love you, Sansa,” Jon’s voice said, fading in volume as the child’s wails rose. “If you let me, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. If you cross the wall I promise he’ll never touch you again.”

The video stopped, the screen freezing on a final image of the woman gathering the boy into her arms. Sansa kept it clutched in her hand for a moment to get herself under control. She took stock of herself, noting the smile still plastered on her face. Her heart was pounding, her throat tight and scratchy. It took a minute to be sure that she wasn’t going to start to cry. She covered for her slow response by taking another sip of cocoa while she tugged the earbuds out with one hand.

“That poor darling,” she finally managed to say when she passed the phone back. If her words came out a little croaked, Theon didn’t seem to notice. “I do hope he didn’t scrape his sweet little knees when he fell like that.”

“He’s stronger than he looks,” Theon reassured her. He wrapped the earbuds around his phone and squirreled it away once more. “His father was Dothraki, if you can believe it. Yara’s teaching him how to swim.”

It was easier to fall back into the sham of small talk this time around. A strange, comforting fog seemed to have settled over her, blanketing her in a haze of numbness that let her play the perfect part. Sansa asked leading questions about Theon’s sister, smiling and laughing in all the right places when he answered with entertaining stories. Before she knew it, another twenty minutes had passed. Theon finished his coffee and got to his feet.

“Well,” he started, giving her a fleeting significant look before the ‘genial old friend’ expression returned, “I’ve unfortunately got to be off. This was just supposed to be a brief stop for caffeine, but I couldn’t not say hello when I saw you sitting here.” His eyes softened, and she knew without the words that he was thinking of the things they’d endured together. “It really is good to see you, Sansa. I hope it won’t be so long before I see you again.”

“I hope so, too.” She didn’t think before she said it. She hadn’t even really needed to consider it. “You should come back and see me sometime, Theon. Ramsay as well. If you know the next time you’ll be in town maybe we could have you ‘round the house for dinner.”

Theon pressed one hand over his heart, inclining his head in a gesture that any passerby could easily confuse for a nod. Sansa knew it as an acknowledgment of her choice.

“I should be ‘round again in a couple of weeks. I’ll be sure to be in touch.”

Without another word, he slipped out of the shop’s side door and disappeared. 

_ ~*~*~*~*~*~ _

From the moment Ramsay picked her up that day, Sansa felt like she was waiting for the executioner’s ax to fall across her neck. Did her husband know about Theon’s visit? Would he suspect her of plotting against him? When would his retribution begin?

On Thursday she was so nervous she could barely function. She dropped the frying pan while making breakfast, the coated skillet rattling so loudly she was sure Ramsay could hear it from the shower. He chastised her over breakfast, but though she expected him to comment on her unexpected visitor the day before all his focus was on her newfound clumsiness. It persisted all through Friday. She fumbled plates, spilled drinks, and tripped over thin air, too focused on the horrible maybes to keep her regular movements steady.

On Saturday morning, her mother’s practicality began to creep into the back of her mind. A voice that reminded her all too much of Catelyn whispered that she couldn’t allow herself to stay caged like this forever. Ramsay was too sure that she was broken to start playing a new long-con with her. If he thought she needed to be reminded that he ran her life he would do it with a sharp temper and by taking away her minute freedoms. If he knew about Theon he certainly wasn’t going to keep his thoughts to himself. She needed to let the tiny, guttering flame in her heart catch and grow. If this plan was to work, she would need to be prepared. 

The morning hours were her time to manage the household. She and Ramsay lived without a staff at his insistence. She was the wife, after all, and that meant that she should take care of her home. She vacuumed neat lines into the carpet, polished furniture until it was gleaming, and tended to her husband’s laundry. He expected her to prepare his breakfast each morning before he left for work, and he came home each day to eat lunch in her company before he would drop her off at the coffee shop for her afternoon writing time. 

If she hurried, she could make ten minutes of time.

There was a loose ceiling tile in the pantry off the kitchen. The room had a drop ceiling in order to accommodate a large vent for the HVAC system. Sansa was a tall woman, and it was nothing for her to climb up onto the pantry’s bottom step and ferret away some important items. She used old cloth reusable grocery bags. When it was time for the weekly grocery trip on Sunday she insisted that she needed to buy all new ones so Ramsay wouldn’t notice them missing. Only two bags would fit, but there weren’t many things in the house that she treasured. 

At her husband’s insistence, she kept a separate bedroom. She wasn’t allowed in his bedroom except to tidy up. He came to her when it was time for her to perform her other ‘wifely duties,’ and that separation made it easier for her to start gathering what would need to pack. Clothes were the easiest. She had little attachment to the majority of her closet. Most of her wardrobe was made up of the outfits Ramsay expected his wife to wear: lacy underthings and perfectly tailored dresses. Two drawers at the bottom of her dresser were filled with comfortable leggings, thick socks, and worn sweaters. They were the clothes that Ramsay hated to see but allowed her to have for those monthly days when he wanted nothing to do with her at all. So she moved a few items each morning while he was at work until she had a couple of outfits tucked above the pantry. 

Her laptop was conspicuous. She used it daily, so it couldn’t go in her stash, but she made sure it would always be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Where before she often left the computer out on the desk in her bedroom she took to make sure that it and all of its accessories were packed away whenever they weren’t in use. She thinned out her vast collection of pens, filling one of the bag’s pockets with her favorites.

The few photos she had of her family were kept in an album in her nightstand drawer. She didn’t dare take the album itself. It was recognizable, and if Ramsay opened the drawer he would expect to see it. She took the photos out of the album instead and slipped them between the pages of her two hardbound writing journals. She’d never been more grateful to have developed a habit of mailing her filled journals to Highgarden House—the publishing company in the Reach that put the romance novels of Alayne Stone on the shelves of every bookstore in Westeros.

Margaery Tyrell took great pains to make sure her back-journals were safely stored so that Ramsay could never destroy them. She was the heir to the powerhouse company, and Sansa was the only one of the many authors they published who could boast having the woman as her editor. Setting her up with Margaery was the only good thing that Sansa could say her agent, Petyr Baelish, had done for her. Especially considering that he’d introduced her to Ramsay in the first place. Though, she supposed he did have a hand in convincing Ramsay that she should keep publishing after they were wed.

One of the only reasons her husband allowed her to continue writing was the royalties that Highgarden House paid out—royalties that Baelish had clued him in on without Sansa’s knowledge. Once he realized that her income could cover groceries, household expenses, and the like he was much more amenable to letting her have her career. He was even more pleased because Sansa was rather prolific. She averaged a new romance novel every quarter, and her following was extensive in both print and electronic markets. Her royalties netted Ramsay a tidy sum, and since they were on direct deposit he was able to keep an eye on every cent.

Even Baelish didn’t know about the real percentages of Sansa’s royalty agreement. As far as he and Ramsay were concerned, Sansa earned fifteen percent for hardcover book sales, ten percent for paperback sales, and twenty percent for e-book sales. It was a little low for someone who’d written as many novels as she did, but because she wrote romances both men just assumed that anything would sell. Deep in the filing cabinets of Margaery Tyrell’s office, kept under a brutal combination of lock, key, and a fingerprint scanner, was the true contract she had with the publishing house. It included strict confidentiality agreements and a distribution lineup for an additional ten percent in royalties on each type of sale that were deposited in Sansa’s secret account. 

After all that Margaery had done for her, Sansa knew she could count on her to handle things in Westeros once Jon’s plan was in motion.

They’d developed a system to communicated without fear of interference. Ramsay read Sansa’s e-mails. She wasn’t sure exactly what kind of technology he’d used to do it, but he’d been  _ displeased _ with the things she’d confessed to her editor in e-mails often enough that she was sure he was getting him somehow. What he didn’t read, though, were the pages of prose she regularly attached to those e-mails.

Exactly two weeks from the day Theon Greyjoy brought her hope, Sansa sat down at her table at Marshmallow Snow and typed page after page of a ‘new book idea’ to send to Margaery. It wasn’t hard to translate what little she knew of the plan into a fictional scenario. An abused wife desperate to leave her husband became the protagonist of a medieval fantasy: a peasant woman with no dowry or status who feared she’d never marry. Then the wild barbarians would attack the village in the night. When the heroine tried to stop one of the barbarian men from slaughtering an elderly neighbor’s milking cow even though she had no weapon or fighting prowess he was impressed and decided to steal her as his bride instead. They would travel far away to the home of his people—an impenetrable fortress hidden deep within an impassable wood.

It wasn’t her best work. It was cliche and the plot was weak, but, then, it wasn’t like she was planning to actually write that novel. She read it through four times to make sure she was getting her point across, making small edits here and there as she went. Finally satisfied, she saved the pages with a specific three-letter code in the file name that Margaery would recognize and sent it off with a blinding boring e-mail. With that done, she couldn’t help but smile, rolling her head to loosen some of the tightness in the muscles there.

And then her eyes fell on the clock behind the counter.

4:03 pm.

Late.

Outside the cafe, a car horn blared. Sansa scrambled, throwing her laptop and papers together in record time. The barista waved her off when asked for the total she owed, insisting she could pay when she returned the next day. She gave the teen a bitterly grateful smile and rushed out the front door to the sleek black Mercedes illegally parked at the curb.

“You’re late, Sansa,” Ramsay chided the instant she opened the passenger side door. “You know how I feel about tardiness. Whatever am I going to do with you?”

His voice was oily, leading, and Sansa could feel her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. She had finished preparing for the best-case scenario, but until that came to pass she had to live with the worst. As she watched her husband’s hands clench around the steering wheel, she braced herself to endure his attention for what was sure to be a long, painful night.

_ ~*~*~*~*~*~ _

Sansa awoke to a gloved hand covering her mouth. 

She panicked for a moment, her heart racing. Her room was dark, and the scent of gun oil filled her nostrils. The leather of the gloves was soft and worn against her face. Slowly her eyes adjusted, and she let them follow the length of an arm covered in thick black wool up until she found herself looking into Jon Snow’s face. He had scars now, and a growth of beard on his chin. The dark curls of his hair were pulled back and away from his face, but she could see where they might be unruly if they were freed. He smiled down at her, pulling his hand away slowly while pressing one finger to his lips. With a great, shuddering breath, Sansa sat up and threw her arms about his shoulders.

“You came,” she breathed, barely audible in her haste to be quiet. She could feel some kind of harness beneath the wool of his jacket and a heavy weight hanging at his side. He was armed.

“Always,” Jon insisted, holding her even tighter. Her ribs screamed, the latest bruises protesting the hug, but she pushed away the pain and clung to him. She turned her head to rest her cheek against Jon’s shoulder, watching the shadows at the door to the hallway behind him.

Then the largest of the shadows moved. 

She must have gasped because Jon pulled away to shush her once again. He turned to the shadow and made two sharp motions. It signaled back, moved forward into a faint shaft of light peeking through the curtains, and Sansa realized that the figure was a rather large man. His hair was pulled back like Jon’s, but though she couldn’t see its true color she could tell that it was much lighter. He had a thick beard hanging down from his chin. Like Jon his clothes were black and his hands were gloved. She couldn’t make out anything for certain, but she was willing to bet that if Jon was armed so was this man.

“That’s Tormund,” Jon whispered, his voice barely loud enough to make out. He nudged her shoulder until she looked back into his eyes. “He’s one of the Free Folk. The friend I mentioned in Theon’s video.”

Sansa’s chest tightened, and she turned her gaze back to Tormund. The mountain of a man was the one meant to steal her away. He nodded at her quickly, but didn’t speak. His hands fluttered in another series of signals directed at Jon, too fast for her to even attempt to interpret.

“We need to go.” Jon untangled himself from their hug and stood from the bed. “You have to pack quickly. Only the essentials.”

Nodding, Sansa slipped silently out from beneath the sheets. “I have two bags hidden in the drop ceiling above the pantry.” Bending down, she fished around under the bed and came up with thick socks and a pair of sneakers she’d pretended to throw out the week before. “Grab my laptop bag and pass me a sweater from the bottom drawer of that dresser.”

When she looked up it was to find Jon staring at her with shock in his eyes. He turned to the desk, staring down at the neatly packed laptop bag sitting atop her chair. To her surprise, his wildling friend—Tormund, she corrected herself—didn’t hesitate to follow her directions. He reached down to rummage in the drawer she’d indicated and passed a sweater to her a moment later. She almost smiled when she realized it was the softest one left in the drawer. By the time she dragged it down over her head and pulled her hair free Jon had gathered his wits.

“We can’t take the laptop,” he insisted. “We don’t have time to turn off all the location tracking and such.”

“Jon,” Sansa began, leveling an exasperated look in his direction. “Every night for the last two weeks I have signed out of all websites and disabled the wi-fi before I shut it down completely. It goes.”

There was a sound from the man at the door that might have been a snort and was quickly muffled when he covered his mouth with one hand. Jon looked vaguely mutinous, but he still hefted the laptop bag in one hand while Sansa sat on the end of the bed to tie her sneakers. He opened the center pocket, checking over the contents to make sure there weren’t any active flashing lights before he handed it over to Sansa, and she secured the strap across her body. Finally ready to go, she slipped the thin gold wedding band and ostentatious engagement ring from her finger and left them atop her phone on the nightstand.

The two men moved so silently that she was conscious of every brush of her feet against the ground and the swish of her clothes when she moved. They crept together down the stairs to the ground floor with Sansa leading the way. Her hand trembled when it landed on the doorknob for the pantry. She twisted it open slowly, conscious of the faintest click when the mechanism came free. The hinges, at least, were well oiled, and it didn’t creak when she pulled it open. The shelf she normally used to boost herself the short distance to the ceiling was another matter. It groaned beneath her foot so sharply that all three of them froze, listening hard for any sign of movement within the house. Sansa held her breath, sure that she’d just given the game away, but after a few moments fearfully waiting it seemed they hadn’t woken Ramsay. 

She pushed up onto the shelf in a rush, stretching up to push the ceiling tile out of the way. She threaded a hand through the handles of one of the grocery bags and carefully passed it down to Jon. The second one followed, and she was careful to replace the ceiling tile back exactly as it had been. She didn’t want to leave any evidence that her disappearance was pre-planned.

Finally, they ducked out of the pantry. Sansa carried her laptop and one of the bags while Jon looped the other over his shoulder. He took over the lead, winding through the bottom floor of the house to the formal dining room that faced the side yard. He eased the window closest to the front lawn open, pulled her aside, and kept watch on the door while Tormund climbed through. When the larger man was safe on the ground outside, Jon gestured for Sansa to climb out next. 

The window sat high, more than a short fall above the ground. The night air was frigid, and her breath formed a visible cloud. She sat on the sill, swung her legs out, and froze at the height of the drop. When she was in her best shape six feet down wouldn’t have been a problem, but she hadn’t been in her best shape for a long time. Before she had a chance to lean back and tell Jon she couldn’t make the jump, Tormund stepped up in front of her and lifted his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he told her, his whispered voice barely carrying up to the window. Though his words were hushed, his voice was warm. “Jump.”

With a deep breath, Sansa closed her eyes and pushed off the window ledge. True to his word, Tormund caught her immediately, gloved hands closing around her waist as he slowed her descent. Her laptop bag thumped painfully against her bruised hip, and she had to readjust the other bag on her shoulder. He lowered her slowly to the ground, eyes focused over her head on the window. With his lips pursed, he let out a low whistle to signal up to Jon.

Sansa froze, her breath coming in quick pants. The whistle brought a rush of thoughts.

How could she have forgotten the dogs?

“The hounds!” she hissed, hands tightening in the fabric of Tormund’s sleeves. “If they catch our scent—” 

“Easy,” Tormund assured her, his big hands coming up to rest on her shoulders. He gave her a slight, gentle shake, and grinned a wild, feral kind of grin. “Theon told us. Slipped the stupid buggers a few extra treats with some tranquilizers we picked up back home. We’ll be long gone before they wake up.”

Jon came up beside them, and when Sansa looked up she found the window had been eased closed once more. Her cousin reached for her hand where it was still tightened on Tormund’s shirt, threaded their fingers together, and squeezed. “Let’s get you away from this shithole.”

When they ducked through a barely visible hole cut from the thick evergreen hedge she could see there was a black SUV waiting at the corner of the street. It sat on a lift kit, raising the whole cab well off the ground. Jon stalked toward it with single-minded focus, releasing Sansa’s hand as they approached from the rear to wind around to the driver’s side. Tormund came up alongside her, one of his massive hands taking her elbow in a gentle grip almost as soon as Jon let go. He led her to the passenger side and opened the rear door. She was tall enough not to need help, but she found herself unwilling to push away the big man’s hands when he made to lift her up onto the seat. Her whole body was shaking, the boost of adrenaline that had gotten her through their hasty exit finally waning. She tilted her head back to give him a shaky smile in thanks. 

She realized too late that the combination of the SUV’s interior lighting and the streetlight on the corner would give Tormund his first clear look at her face. Her very battered face.

It was like watching a storm cloud roll over his features. She was familiar with irrational rage in a man’s eyes—intimately familiar—but what she saw in the wildling’s face wasn’t the same. It wasn’t anger for the sake of anger. If she hadn’t trusted Jon’s judgment in men before that moment, Sansa would have known that Tormund was a good man by the visible, protective fury she saw in his eyes right then. He didn’t say a word, just made sure she was settled safely in the SUV, turned, and stomped back toward the house. 

“Tormund!” Jon called as loudly as he dared. “What are you doing? We need to go!”

“Forgot my knife!” he replied as he disappeared back through the hedge.

Sansa swallowed. She was sure that Jon, like her, could clearly make out the shape of a big, mean hunting knife hanging from Tormund’s belt. She pulled her legs into the SUV and leaned out to close the door, trying to keep her head down as Jon spat curses and hoisted himself into the driver’s seat. He turned to look at her over the back of the driver’s seat.

“I swear he’s not usually—” He cut himself off the instant their eyes met, seeing exactly what had set Tormund off. Sansa’s left eye wasn’t swollen enough to affect her vision, but the bruising across the cheekbone beneath it was a mottled mess. Her lip was split, and in the light of the car’s interior without any make-up, every injury stood out even more against her pale skin. Jon swallowed, tamping down the very same anger she’d seen in Tormund’s eyes. He turned back to face the road, reaching out to close the driver’s side door. The interior light blinked out.

“We’ll meet him at the end of the drive,” Jon said as he turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. 

They quickly circled the block, coming to a stop right at the end of the driveway with the passenger doors facing the house. Sansa stared through the bars of the gate, idly chewing on one thumbnail. The wildling was nowhere to be seen. If he managed to wake Ramsay with whatever revenge scheme he’d embarked upon, would they still be able to get away? Could they get out of the city before any of Ramsay’s pet cops managed to track them down?

She was still fretting when the bay window in the parlor exploded outward.

By the time Sansa realized that the writhing lump which had been tossed through the window was  _ Ramsay, _ her husband was scrambling up to his knees. Even behind the closed car door, she could see that he was spitting venom. Tormund climbed through the broken window after him, kicking shards of glass out of his way as he went. He strode across the lawn toward the drive, seemingly unperturbed as Ramsay made it to his feet and rushed toward him. It happened so fast that Sansa barely registered what she was seeing.

Ramsay charged. Tormund threw a single punch. Ramsay hit the ground. Tormund kicked his boot hard into Ramsay’s face, and Bolton went still, sliding out of consciousness.

In another instant, Tormund had scaled the fence and opened the door to climb into the passenger seat, calmly buckling his seatbelt once he was settled.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” he quipped with a toothy grin as Jon threw the SUV into gear and sped off. “My knife was on my hip the whole time.”


	2. Black Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, huge thanks to [Dresupi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi) for being such an awesome beta! This chapter is coming later than I intended, but there's an extra scene in here I hadn't planned on that just insisted it should be added.

_~*~*~*~*~*~_

**black ice**

/ˌblak ˈīs/

_noun_

a transparent coating of ice, found especially on a road or other paved surface.

_~*~*~*~*~*~_

They drove south first, winding through the streets at just close enough to the speed limit to avoid drawing attention. Sansa chewed her fingernails as she watched the street signs pass through the SUV’s heavily tinted rear windows. Jon wasn’t taking the most heavily traveled route to the highway, but he wasn’t taking the safest one either. She took to counting the visible traffic cameras as they switched from residential streets to more heavily trafficked roads. By the time they moved onto a major thoroughfare as they approached the highway on-ramp she’d bitten her thumbnail down to the quick.

“Deep, slow breaths now, lass.”

She started at the sound of Tormund’s voice, almost wrenching the muscles in her neck when she turned to face him. He was twisted around in the front seat, blue eyes on her. She suddenly became aware that her breath was coming in short, rapid gasps. Her brain supplied the word: hyperventilating. 

“In for three, and out for three,” Tormund directed her calmly. He raised a hand into her line of sight. “With me, now.” 

He took a deep, exaggerated breath, slowly ticking up fingers to a count of three. His eyebrows raised as he stared at her, pausing briefly before he exhaled just as slowly, folding his fingers one at a time back down into his fist. He began the whole process over again, and she did her best to follow along. It took several guided breaths before Sansa was able to match herself to his pace, her hands clutching tight to her upper arms and her eyes locked on his.

“There we are,” he said after a few minutes of steadily breathing together. “You’re alright.” He gave her the faintest hint of a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. With a brief nod, he turned back around in his seat, addressing her brother when he spoke again. “How far before we turn to home?”

“Twenty miles,” Jon answered, his eyes glued to the road. “There’s an exit with a gas station that has cameras.”

In the back seat, Sansa could feel her panic rising again. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, before she voiced her concern. “Shouldn’t we be avoiding cameras?”

“Eventually we will be,” Jon admitted, “but when Bolton calls in his contacts we want them to be on a wild goose chase for as long as we can get. So we want the cameras to see us heading south for White Harbor. If we’re very lucky, he’ll guess we’re sailing for Essos, but given _someone’s_ decision to make sure he saw their face I’d say the chances are slim for that.”

Tormund seemed completely unperturbed, and Sansa spotted a wicked grin crossing his face in the rearview mirror. “He’ll not be forgetting that beating. I want him to know I’m the one responsible for it.”

“It was too risky.” There was gravel and steel in Jon’s voice, and Sansa was reminded of the way he used to chastise Robb when one of his hot-headed decisions had derailed their boyhood plans. The anger was fond, brotherly even. “We’ll have less time to get things squared away.”

“Let him come to the true North,” Tormund insisted, waving one of his large hands vaguely. “We’ll remind him that he’s nothing special there. Just another bad-tempered cunt who has to make others feel small so he can pretend to be worth more than dog shit.”

“You don’t know him,” Sansa interrupted, her voice quiet. Both men tensed, clearly listening intently. “You’ve no idea what he’s capable of. He may not have friends north of the Wall, but he won’t be too afraid to come for me himself, and he’s got even less to fear without the laws of Westeros hovering over him.”

The tension in Tormund’s shoulders eased, and he let out a sharp bark of laughter. “It would be his mistake to think that would be good for him,” he assured her. He turned to look at her again and actually winked at her this time. “Law is wilder where we’re going, lass. No one would blink if I put an axe through a man’s skull for trying to hurt my wife.”

Sansa had no response, her mind buzzing too hard over those words. _His_ wife. She’d been a wife for so long already, defined by the ring she’d left behind and the man it bound her to. Now she was going to be a wife to someone else. That was supposed to be freedom? To have another man call her his own?

“Enough,” Jon commanded, drawing her attention away from her inner turmoil. “Marrying your sorry hide is a daunting task for anyone. Don’t rub her face in it now. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

They drove in silence until they reached an exit ramp with a travel center. Its parking lot was bright, populated by a handful of cars and even more large shipping trucks despite the late—early?—hour. It had a restaurant attached and gas pumps available on three sides. Jon took a deep breath as he slowed the SUV to a stop on the exit ramp to wait for the traffic light to turn.

“Alright, here’s the plan.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel, the leather cover squeaking a bit in his grip. “We’re going to fill up the car with gas. Tormund will go into the store to buy a few snacks and make sure he’s seen. When he gets out of the car, Sansa, you roll down your window halfway and ask him to get something for you. Doesn’t matter what. Lean close to the window so someone looking hard can see you through the open gap, but do not stick your head out the window.”

“You want it to look like you’re hiding me in the car,” she clarified, realizing exactly what he was planning. “Make it look like we’re doing our best to keep me out of sight and failing.”

“Right,” Jon confirmed. She could see the corner of his lips twitch up into an approving smile in the rearview mirror. “We’ve got to be obvious enough to get noticed without being so obvious that it looks like a show. If we’re too exaggerated he’ll know we’re leading him and correctly assume it’s a trick.”

Sansa nodded even though she knew neither of them was looking at her. Jon had clearly grown since the last time she’d seen him. She wouldn’t have thought him capable of underhanded strategy. The light turned green and Jon pulled out onto the road, pulling into the travel center a few seconds later. The lights were even brighter as they drove beneath them, making Sansa grateful for the tinted windows. She let her eyes trace over the building as they pulled up to a gas pump farthest from the front door. They were positioned perfectly. When she rolled down the window there was a camera that would be able to perfectly capture part of the back and side of her head.

“Here we go.” Jon shut the engine off and wasted no time getting out to fiddle with the gas pump.

Tormund moved a bit more leisurely. He took his time to open the door and climb out to his feet, pausing to give a full-body stretch and yawn before he pushed it shut behind him. He twisted his torso back and forth. Sansa watched him through the window, getting her first good look at the wildling under the harsh gas station lights. His hair was a bright coppery red just barely long enough to pull into a stubby tail at the back of his head. His beard matched his hair and was clearly well-groomed. Now that they were away from the house he’d stripped off his gloves and the black pullover he’d worn. He was left in a long-sleeved grey henley, his black combat pants, and heavy black boots. With time to observe she could see that he was indeed heavily armed. Besides the hunting knife, he carried a large handgun in a thigh-holster on his right leg and what looked to be a hatchet hanging from his belt within easy reach of his left hand. She wondered idly if he had Westerosi permits for openly carrying so much weaponry, but she was fairly certain no one would question a man of his stature.

She waited for a beat until she could see him about to take his first step toward the store and then rolled her window down halfway.

“Tormund?” she called gently, keeping her face tilted away from the camera while she leaned close enough to the glass for her voice to be heard. “Could I have a hot chocolate, please?”

“Of course you can,” he told her. He smiled big, white teeth showing. “I’ll even get you extra marshmallows.” He stepped in front of her door, his back to the camera and completely blocking the view of her. He rapped gently on the top of the car. “Up with that window, now.”

She rolled it up just as he asked, watching through the tinted glass as he sauntered off like he didn’t have a care in the world. Alone for the first time since their flight from the house, Sansa finally had a moment to process. It was as though a ball of ice had settled in her chest, the cold radiating out through the rest of her torso. She tried to keep her breathing even, counting each inhale and exhale as Tormund had when he was calming her down, but it seemed to be a losing battle. Her thoughts raced through what had transpired, her mind already conjuring likely possibilities. 

The moment Ramsay was awake with a clear head he would set the cops on their tail. That was a guarantee. But how long would they have? If a neighbor heard the ruckus and called the police, an EMT would find a way to revive Ramsay very quickly and officers might already be in pursuit. Then again, a shattering window was loud, particularly when the man who’d gone through it was an incensed Ramsay who came up shouting, but Sansa had barely been able to hear it behind the tinted windows of the SUV. The house was surrounded by a ten-foot hedge, and all the neighbors were on multi-acre lots just like that of the Bolton household. It was possible no one had heard. 

“Sansa?”

However, if that were the case it left another question: How long would Tormund’s punch keep him unconscious? She knew a bit about being rendered unconscious. The groggy, cotton-filled-head feeling of waking up with lost time after being knocked out was familiar, but she had no idea how that looked from the other side. Would he wake up only minutes after they were gone? Or would they have some leeway?

“Sansa!”

A hand shook her knee and she jumped. Her hands instinctively came up in front of her face to block an oncoming blow, her breaths coming short and fast once more. She blinked frantically, trying to gain her bearings. Slowly, the panic-blurred world resolved and she remembered she was in the back of the SUV. Jon was back in the driver’s seat, concern written all over his features. One of his hands was still outstretched from where he’d shook her. His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before he spoke.

“Fuck me.” His voice was rough, and his eyes shimmered a bit. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure how to snap you out of it.” He swallowed, and she could see him counting her visible wounds. He opened his mouth again, but before he could speak the passenger door was wrenched open, and Tormund climbed back in.

“Hot chocolate for the lady.” He passed the covered cup carefully over his seat. Sansa took it in both hands to give them something to do besides shake, wrapping her cold fingers around the warm paper cup in its cardboard sleeve. He took two more cups from a drink carrier and settled them into the front cupholders. “Coffee for the two of us. I also got sandwiches and crisps and other things to keep us going until we stop to eat.”

“ _If_ we stop to eat,” Jon grumbled. He turned back to the front of the car and buckled his seat belt. “You’ll have no one to blame but yourself if we have to go around a drive-thru and eat on the road.”

Tormund shrugged. “You’re the prissy lad that just has to eat at a table. Food tastes the same in the car as it does in a restaurant.”

While the two of them bickered good-naturedly about Tormund’s attack on Ramsay, Sansa turned her attention to the cup of hot chocolate in her hands. The cardboard cup was doubled up to keep the heat seeping through from reaching levels too hot to comfortably handle. She lifted it to her lips for a sip, but couldn’t get more than a steamy gust of sugar through the lid’s tiny opening. Before Jon could put the car in gear and get them moving, she popped open the lid and peered inside. The whole top of the cup was stuffed with marshmallows. Extra indeed. Smiling faintly, she lifted the open cup to her lips and quickly ate enough marshmallows off the top so she’d actually be able to drink the rest of the contents. She got the lid back in place just in time to keep hot chocolate from splashing out over her hands when the SUV lurched forward. 

The chatter of her companions seemed to have subsided for the moment. Jon was focused on getting them back on the road. He hopped back on the southbound highway for about twenty minutes, and then took a sharp right onto a farm track when there were no other vehicles in sight. The next half hour of the ride was bumpy as they swapped from one winding country road to the next, weaving westward. The sky began to lighten behind them while they skirted far outside the western boundaries of Dreadfort and finally turned north. The clouds above took on vibrant pink and orange hues as the sun began to peek out above the horizon, a perfect early winter sunrise.

“Why didn’t you call any of us?” Jon asked suddenly, startling her from her focus on the changing sky. “When it started to get bad why didn’t you ask for help?”

Sansa looked down at her hands, toying absently with the empty cup of cocoa. Her throat felt tight. “I didn’t think you would help.”

“Why not?” 

She started at the hitch in his voice. When she looked up, he was determinedly staring out the front window, but she could see the tense set of his shoulders and the tightly clenched muscle of his jaw. In the passenger seat, Tormund gave her a stern look. She’d hurt Jon, but given what she’d been told she couldn’t imagine why he thought she’d react any differently. A thought crept into the back of her mind, wary and pervasive.

“After Mum, Dad, and Robb’s funerals I was told that none of you wanted anything to do with me,” she admitted quietly, watching closely for his reaction. His eyes darted up to hers in the rearview mirror in surprise. That confirmed her suspicion. “None of you ever told Petyr that you didn’t want to see me anymore, did you?”

“Baelish?” Jon’s tone turned murderous. “The last conversation I had with Littlefinger was after the funerals when he gave us your letter asking for space. I told him if he touched you I’d tear him to pieces with my bare fucking hands.”

Tears started to roll unbidden down Sansa’s face, but her breathing remained steady. Her letter. She’d never written any letter, but as her agent, Petyr Baelish had plenty of examples of her handwriting. In spite of the tears, she felt a terrible sense of clarity. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No. You were grieving,” Jon ground out through gritted teeth. “The letter?”

“I never wrote a letter, Jon,” she insisted, leaning forward to place a hand on his shoulder. “I rode to the funeral with Petyr. When he told me he was leaving and would drive me home I said I wanted to stay with all of you. That’s when he gave me the ‘terrible news.’” 

She shook her head, replaying that day in her mind. Looking back, she wasn’t sure how she’d ever fallen for his hushed words and hangdog expression. She was still so raw from it all, broken to have lost her parents and oldest brother all in one go, and her siblings all grieved so differently. Arya had been… well, herself. They’d bickered. Now that she thought about it, they’d fought right before she stomped outside for some air. That was where Baelish found her. It all made so much sense. He once told her that he’d always known how to recognize when someone was at their weakest. She should have taken him at his word.

“Let me get this straight,” Tormund chimed in, cutting through the storm of emotions between her and Jon. “This Baelish fucker told you—” he pointed at Jon. “—that Sansa wanted time away from the family and you,” he turned to Sansa, raising his eyebrows in her direction. “He told you that your family never wanted to see you again?”

“Yes,” Sansa confirmed.

“Answer me this,” he continued, his bright blue eyes boring into hers. “Did this Littlefinger have anything to do with you hitching your wagon to that cunt I threw out the window?”

Blood roared in her ears. A scene played out across the movie screen of her mind. It was a glamorous party in Maidenpool hosted by some of Petyr’s agency contacts. He’d asked her to come as his ‘prized client.’ There he’d introduced her to Roose Bolton, a prominent attorney in the North. Bolton, in turn, had wanted her to meet his son. She could remember it clearly: Ramsay’s charming manners, the familiarity of conversation with Northern accents, and Petyr’s whispered comments that Ramsay would be a fine partner for her. In hindsight, none of it looked even remotely accidental.

“I’m starting to rethink that first plan I talked you out of,” Tormund told Jon conversationally, guessing from the look on her face that he’d come to the right conclusion. “They might be better off dead.”

“Too late for that,” Jon sighed mournfully. He took one hand off the wheel and reached blindly for her. Sansa gripped his fingers hard. “None of us wanted you gone, Sans. We’ve missed you.”

“I don’t even know where the rest of them are,” she croaked. “I didn’t know where you were until Theon came.”

Jon gave a humorless laugh and squeezed her hand. “Well, that I can help with. Want me to tell you?”

She nodded, unable to get the words out. She couldn’t let go of his hand. He wasn’t watching for her reaction in the mirror this time, but he spoke anyway.

“Arya is in Braavos.”

“Terrorizing someone else’s population,” Tormund muttered.

“Shut up.” Jon took a breath and sighed. “She’s studying at a mortuary school there, and she’s on this fencing team that is insanely good. I have a few regrets about getting her that fencing sabre when we were kids.”

Sansa hiccupped a laugh, swiping the tears from her cheeks with the hand that wasn’t still clutching Jon’s. “Mother told you that would happen. What about the boys?”

“Well, Bran is doing a double major in history and cultural anthropology,” he told her. “He started with a semester at Oldtown’s branch in Deepwood Motte, then switched to their remote learning after he did the next semester abroad. He’s got a crazy stoner boyfriend that he lives with and they are a hell of a pair. They’ve got their own place, but since he’s still underage Rickon lives with Uncle Benjen. Actually, they’re all on a trip to Skagos together right now. Bran’s got this week-long study of the old stoneborn cultures and Rickon wanted to go climbing with him in his downtime, so Benjen took time off to pack them all over there.” His eyes found hers in the mirror again, and his grip tightened. “They’ll be home next week. In Hardhome. Arya aside, we all live in the same place, Sansa.”

What little composure she had evaporated, and Sansa wept. Getting away from Ramsay was one thing. Reuniting with Jon was one thing. Finding out that her years separated from her family were the unnecessary result of Baelish’s deviousness was one thing. But learning that she’d be with all of them save Arya again within the week? It was more than she knew how to process. She released her grip on Jon to bury her face in her hands and completely broke down. She cried until she had nothing left, accepting a worn bandana from Tormund as a handkerchief when it was offered. By the time she got herself calmed down the sun was rising higher in the sky and they’d completely passed Dreadfort by.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, still sniffling. “It’s just a lot all at once.”

“You don’t apologize for that, lass,” Tormund insisted. He bent forward in his seat, rifling through the bags from the gas station. “It makes King Crow over here uncomfortable seeing girls cry, but when you’ve got so much emotion it’s better to let it out loud than keep it bottled in. Tears are good for the soul.” He punched Jon lightly in the shoulder while he turned in his seat to face her. “He’d know that if he ever let himself cry like a real man.” In the middle of the hand he stretched out to her was a treat she certainly hadn’t expected: a packaged lemon cake. “A pretty crow told me these are your favorite.”

“Thank you,” she said graciously, accepting the treat with a watery smile and a sniffle. She scrubbed her eyes with her other hand using the end of her sweater sleeve. Her throat was scratchy and her head felt full in the wake of her sobs. What she needed was a distraction. She turned to Tormund. “Jon said you have children?”

“Two daughters,” he confirmed with a beaming smile. He dug around in his pocket for a moment, then reached out to hand her a wallet so thick with photos that it could barely be closed. He flipped it open on her palm and pointed to an image of two young girls with bright blue hairs and wild red hair. “The oldest is Hilde and the youngest is Saga.”

Tormund immediately launched into a rambling tale of his children’s wilder escapades, and Sansa let herself be carried along with the story. While Jon drove them ever northward she listened, and a little while she was able to pretend. This was just a road trip with her brother and one of his friends who turned out to be a very proud father. Simple and comforting. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

They’d just pulled out of a drive-thru twenty minutes outside of Last Hearth when Jon’s cell phone rang. It vibrated across the dash and would have fallen to the floorboards if he hadn’t snatched it out of the air. Sansa watched from the backseat while he frowned down at the screen. He gave Tormund a look before he answered, and Sansa felt a nervous thrum pulse through her.

“Hey, Edd.” Jon pressed the phone to his ear, steering with one hand while he turned them onto a more well-traveled road than the winding rural routes they’d been traveling for the last few hours. “We’re just north of Last Hearth.” 

He listened in silence for a moment, then blew out a breath. “Fuck. Alright, we’re going to move to Plan B. We can’t risk waiting for the ferry.”

“Shit,” Tormund growled from the passenger seat. He turned to look at her. “Get comfortable. Plan B means more driving.”

“We should be there by three,” Jon was telling the person on the other end of the line. “If you haven’t heard from us by four, assume something went wrong.” Something Edd said must have been amusing because Jon snorted out a brief laugh. “Well, that should keep them busy at least. I owe you. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Jon hung up and tossed the phone back onto the dash. He scrubbed a hand over his face, his eyes focused on the road. In the back seat, Sansa tried to stare a hole in the back of his head, the sandwich she’d gotten from the drive-thru lying untouched in her lap. Finally, after they drove a few miles in total silence, she couldn’t take the anxiety any longer.

“Jon,” she began, one hand clenching into a fist at her side, “what’s going on? Is he going to find us?”

He shook his head. “No, he’s just looking harder than we anticipated.” He shot a brief sideways glare at Tormund. “Can’t imagine why.”

“What does that mean?” Sansa asked bluntly. “Don’t treat me with kid gloves on this. This is my life we’re trying to get back. I deserve the details.”

Their eyes met in the rearview mirror, and Sansa could see the war taking place in his mind. On the one hand, he wanted to protect her from the fear and the worry. On the other, he understood that she needed a sense of control. She’d seen that same look on her father’s face so many times when they were young, and she knew from experience on which side of the fence he would fall. In matters like this, Jon was not like Ned Stark. In the end, the desire to protect was overshadowed by his surety that she needed to be prepared.

“You’re right,” he finally agreed. “Police officers have contacted the Watch to see if they have any information on a man suspected of kidnapping a northman’s wife. Edd took the request, and he recognized Tormund in the picture they sent over to him.”

“What does that mean?” Her heart was pounding. Could they not get past the Wall?

“Fuck all,” Tormund snorted.

Jon rolled his eyes. “Not much for now. Edd is delaying the inquiring party from getting the results for the time being. The suspect is presumed to be heading toward White Harbor, so we at least know our little ruse at the gas station has worked for the moment.” He shifted a bit, twisting his head from side to side to loosen the tense muscles. “Originally, the plan was to wait at Eastwatch and go to Hardhome on a supply ferry tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to risk lingering on this side of the Wall with them already contacting the Watch.”

“So,” Tormund took over. “We’re going to drive straight through.”

“Yeah, and you’re going to have to take over after we’re through the gate,” Jon told the other man. “I might take us off a cliff when the snows kick up.”

Tormund’s response was muttered so low Sansa almost didn’t catch it. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Shut up.” Jon’s cheeks were the faintest shade of pink. “Will you call Ygritte so I can eat? We need to move everything up a day.”

Momentarily calmed by the assurance that a plan was still in motion, Sansa forced herself to relax. She consciously loosened her jaw where she’d clenched her teeth and turned her attention to unwrapping the sandwich cooling on her lap. Though the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit was cooler than she typically liked it was still delicious. Meanwhile, Tormund took up Jon’s cell and had a quick, jovial conversation. Whoever Ygritte was, she and Tormund seemed quite friendly. Sansa was on the verge of wondering if her future husband was already courting a mistress when he turned to Jon with a wide grin.

“She says to tell you she’ll get it taken care of and also that your balls still look great in that jar on her mantle.”

Sansa nearly choked on a bite of biscuit, coughing violently while Tormund hung up. The big man turned to make sure she was alright, but he was still chuckling as he did so. He winked at her, and Sansa couldn’t help but smile back at him. Jon’s face in the rearview mirror was bright red. 

“Girlfriend,” Jon offered in explanation.

Teasing and baiting had been a sport in the Stark household. With Tormund’s eyes sparkling with mirth and Jon so clearly uncomfortable Sansa found that she couldn’t wait to get back in the game.

“I should hope so,” she said primly, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin like it was made of the finest silk. “Mother and Father raised you better than to let just anyone keep your balls on their mantle.”

For a moment, the entire car was as silent as the grave. Jon’s mouth was wide open, his eyes darting between the road and her reflection in the mirror, surprise written all over his features. Sansa just stared back, her face a calm mask. Then, Tormund burst into raucous laughter.

“You get more entertaining by the minute,” he told her, beaming. Even after the stressful morning they’d shared he always seemed to be smiling, and Sansa couldn’t help but like him all the more for it. “Now, slide over there to sit behind your brother. If I’m going to drive after the Wall, I need a kip.”

She did as he asked, sliding across the backseat with as much grace as she could manage. Her body protested, the combination of stiff muscles and new bruises making her hiss in pain. Tormund laid his seat back, working the lever with one hand while he rummaged in one of his pockets with the other. After a moment he pulled out a tiny bottle and held it out to her. Ibuprofen. She took it gratefully, smiling at him in thanks. He nodded, crossed his arms over his chest, and shut his eyes. He was snoring by the time she’d taken two pills and put the cap back on the bottle.

“I swear,” Jon huffed with a laugh, “he can sleep anywhere.”

“I’m a little jealous,” Sansa admitted. She leaned forward just enough to deposit Tormund’s ibuprofen bottle in the cupholder closest to his seat. “I can’t imagine sleeping right now.”

“That’s because you have sense.”

She laughed faintly. “Maybe.”

They rode in silence for a while as Tormund snored beside them. Sansa found herself staring out the window as the northern scenery rolled by, noting with every passing mile how the hills shifted from fading green to sprinkled with snow and then to a fluffy blanket of white flakes. It seemed like no time at all before she caught her first glimpse of a shimmering line that spanned the entire horizon. The Wall. She found herself staring as it grew larger and larger beyond the SUV’s windshield. She felt a rising sort of pressure in every fiber of her being, as though she were the contents of a shaken soda bottle. She was sure that if they didn’t manage to make it past The Wall and beyond the jurisdiction of Westerosi police that she was going to explode. Their travel along the highway continued, and The Wall slowly grew larger. Sansa could feel her nerves rising up within her once more, and she wrenched her eyes away from the landmark.

“Jon,” she croaked, desperate for something else to focus on. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

“I won’t lie,” he admitted, “it’s not common. Most people don’t pay attention to the protections given to the Free Folk. They’d rather pretend that north of The Wall is just land that Westeros doesn’t want and not an independent nation. But there is precedent.”

That was not what she’d expected to hear. “There is?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, still focused on the road. “A handful of women in the settlements out in the Frostfangs and even one up in Thenn. There’s a woman in Hardhome, too, though she wasn’t escaping an abusive spouse. What we’re planning to exploit is actually a part of the original Treaty of the Watch. My friend, Sam, could explain it to you better.”

“You’re doing just fine,” she assured him. “I don’t need exact details right now.”

“That’s good, because I’m awful at the history. The gist of it is that as long as you’re a citizen of the True North that Westeros can’t force you to return. The most ironclad way to make Westerosi authorities recognize you as a citizen is for you to marry one of the Free Folk.”

Sansa nodded, her mind turning to a dozen different examples of similar situations in fiction. She could see the logic in it. “What are marriages like among the Free Folk?”

“I don’t really know. The only married man I’m familiar with is Mance, and he’s not a good example for typical anything.” He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “You, uh… you may need to let someone at The Wall document your injuries.”

She froze, a frisson of anxiety tightening every muscle in her body. Some part of her had known this was coming from that moment beneath the streetlight when Tormund first got a look at her face, but that didn’t make her any better prepared. 

“I wouldn’t say anything if it weren’t for the fact that Ramsay’s already contacted the Watch,” Jon insisted, clearly picking up on her discomfort. “If you go on record saying that you’re seeking asylum with the Free Folk and let them document your injuries there’s less of a chance he could try to say that we kidnapped you.”

Her throat tightened. She knew he was right, of course, but that didn’t exactly make letting a stranger photograph her many bruises more appealing. “Can we trust the Watch with this?”

“The Night’s Watch has its problems like everywhere else, but they’re not bound to Westerosi or Free Folk jurisdiction. And Edd Tollet is at Eastwatch. He can take your statement and do the documenting. We came up through training together. I would trust Edd with my life.”

“But do you trust him with mine?” Sansa pressed. 

Jon’s eyes found hers in the mirror once more. “As much as I trust Tormund.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

It didn’t matter how many times she’d seen photographs of The Wall up close. From the moment they pulled up to the gates of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea Sansa was completely in awe. Sheer ice stretched above them for hundreds of feet. Snow blew around the gates, and when Jon rolled his window down to flash an ID badge the gust of air that flowed into the vehicle was absolutely frigid. Thankfully, the guard at the gate—his jet black uniform so bare of patches and pins that it must be his first assignment—let them pass quickly, and Jon closed the cold outside the glass. Tormund sat up in the passenger seat, raising his seat-back while they drove slowly toward an enormous black gate set into the face of the Wall itself. As they approached the gates began to open, the rails that pulled them to either side of an immense opening grinding under the effort. 

“We’ll get out in the tunnel,” Jon said. “Stretch our legs for a minute and switch over to snow tires.”

No one paid them any mind as Jon steered his SUV into the opening of the tunnel. A few uniformed men peered at them just long enough to recognize Jon’s face and then hurried to go about their business. Now that she thought about it, Sansa didn’t actually know what position Jon held with the Night’s Watch. Whatever it was, he seemed to have the respect of every man that spotted them. Once they were out from under the sun and Sansa’s eyes started to adjust to the change in lighting, she could see that the passage was easily twice the height of a freight truck. All along the sides of the tunnel rooms and vehicle repair bays had actually been built into the ice. Jon pulled the SUV into one of the bays and cut the engine.

Before he could reach for his phone, a door to one side of the bay opened. A short, slight man with an officer’s patch on the shoulder of his jacket made his way down a small flight of steps and headed straight for them. His beard was trimmed close to his chin and well-shaped, a sharp contrast among all the men of the Night’s Watch who appeared to grow thick, unruly beards as much to keep warm in the cold climate as they did for fashion. His hair was long, and Sansa was sure that it would hang in dark curtains around his angular face if it weren’t caught at the back of his head in a short tail.

“That’s Edd,” Jon murmured in her direction. “He must have been waiting for us.”

Jon pushed open the driver’s side door and climbed down from the truck, but Sansa hesitated. She watched as Edd headed straight for Jon’s side of the SUV, though he gave a familiar nod in Tormund’s direction as well. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Jon’s judgment. He believed that Edd was trustworthy, so she believed it, too. It was just that… well, she’d been raised to make a good impression. She suddenly found herself worried about the impression her bruises and split lip were going to make on Jon’s friend. He closed the door behind him after gesturing for her and Tormund to follow, and Sansa made the split-second decision to slide across the backseat and get out beside Tormund instead.

She’d expected it to be cold, but the reality of the frigid temperature even in the enclosed tunnel was enough to make her gasp. Her breath became a white cloud before her eyes, and goosebumps rose across her skin beneath her sweater. She shivered involuntarily as she closed the car door, shifting from foot to foot. A heavy, fleece-lined denim coat was suddenly shoved in front of her.

“Here,” Tormund insisted, shaking the coat at her. “You might be dressed warm enough for the south, but you’ll freeze up here without something more.”

He smiled at her when she took it and dragged his black pullover back over his head. Sansa slipped her arms into the coat, grateful for the immediate warmth it provided. The sleeves were too long, and her torso was practically drowning in the width of it. Tormund reached over to brush a few strands of copper hair from the lapels, and she realized that the coat was his. He drew it closed around her, fastening a button near the collar even though she hadn’t done up the zip. It seemed to be such a familiar gesture for him, and she could imagine him doing the same for his daughters.

“Ready?” he asked with a gentle smile, tilting his head toward the two men on the other side of the vehicle. She gave a grateful nod and let him lead her to the others.

“—had to explain it all to the Lord Commander,” Edd was saying as they rounded the front of the SUV. “He’s not happy you didn’t come to him with this, but I think that’s just because he’d rather be in the loop. He’s also insisting that we file asylum paperwork. Cover all the bases.”

“I figured we’d be doing that,” Jon sighed. “I’ll head up to Castle Black on Sunday. Take my lecture.” He reached for Sansa without turning, lightly grasping her hand to pull her forward. “This is Sansa. Sansa, this is Edd Tollet.”

Edd turned to her, and his eyes widened when they fell on her face. He looked her over with a frank, assessing gaze. “Mother’s mercy,” he breathed. He shook himself, and offered his hand for Sansa to shake. “I’m surprised I’m not getting calls looking for a murderer. I wish I was meeting you under better circumstances.” 

“It was tempting,” Jon laughed. He turned to her. “Would you mind going with Edd and getting the documents handled? If Edd will let us use the lifts, we can get the snow tires on while you’re doing that so we can leave straight away.”

“Of course,” Sansa agreed. It was actually a bit of a relief to know that Jon and Tormund wouldn’t be there for this. It would be easier not to have their rage in the room while she walked back through Ramsay’s abuse from the night before.

“You know how the lifts work,” Edd pointed out. He pointed at Tormund. “Just don’t let this monster break anything.”

Tormund laughed. “It’s not my fault your Westerosi construction can’t withstand real strength.” 

“It’s not so much that you’re strong. It’s just that you’re a bull in a fucking china shop everywhere you go.” Edd turned to Sansa and gestured back to the small sets of stairs with one arm. “We’ve got a first-aid office at the back of this bay, Mrs. Bolton.”

“Stark,” she corrected immediately, following as he led her up the stairs and into a cozy office. “I don’t want to be Mrs. Bolton ever again.”

“Of course.” Edd nodded in sympathy. He closed the door behind them. “My apologies Ms. Stark. I’m sorry I don’t have a female officer to be here for this. There’s not many women in the Night’s Watch, and none of them are stationed here.” The room was sparse, containing only an exam table, some disposal bins, and a counter with overhead cabinets against one wall.

“It’s alright. To be honest, modesty is kind of low on my list of priorities at the moment.”

“Fair enough.” Edd crossed to the counter and picked up a sheaf of papers from its surface. “I went ahead and filled out some basics on the asylum papers after I talked to Jon earlier today, but I didn’t realize you were in this kind of state. Would you be willing to let me photograph your injuries for the file? It would be better evidence than just listing them on the papers.”

Sansa bit her lip. “Do you have to photograph all of them?”

Closing his eyes, Edd leaned back against the counter and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That is not the kind of thing I’d hoped to hear.”

They spent the next ten minutes discussing her wounds in the most clinical terms they could manage. Edd was comfortingly blunt about the details. He didn’t mince words or dance around the subject, even when it came to the awkward question of whether or not any of the violence she’d been subjected to had been sexual. He didn’t, in the end, insist on photographing every scrape and bruise. He took several shots of her face and neck, then a few more perfunctory shots of the bruising on her ribs and hip while she held her clothing out of the way. She watched the same anger cloud his eyes that she’d seen in Jon’s and Tormund’s, but it didn’t seem to affect his demeanor at all. She wondered just a little how a man who seemed so passive had come to be in command of an entire garrison, and resolved to ask Jon about it at some point.

“Are you going to press charges?” Edd asked quietly while he was pointing out the places on the paperwork that required her signature.

“No,” she told him, refusing to look up at his eyes. “It won’t do any good. I just want to be free of him.”

She expected an argument in favor of the Westerosi courts, but Edd just nodded. There was something dark in his expression, and she got the sudden feeling that he’d witnessed injustice in the courts first hand. He took the clipboard of papers from her when she signed on the final line and added his own signature beside it. He took the pages off the clipboard, slipped them into a file folder, and placed both the file and papers in a drawer. He locked it quickly and turned to help her back into Tormund’s coat.

“I’ll get those filed in the electronic system as soon as I’ve seen you all through the tunnel,” he told her while he held the coat for her to slip her arms into the sleeves.

“Thank you for all your help.” She pulled her hair out over the coat’s collar and turned to give him a bright smile. “I wish I had a way to repay it.”

“No need,” he insisted, waving a hand. “Jon is my brother. This is a drop in the ocean.” He cleared his throat, seemingly uncomfortable with being praised. “A mysterious computer error is going to keep us from being able to identify the footage of Tormund until after the weekend. After that we’ll have to tell them, but I can promise you this: Ramsay Bolton will never cross the wall through Eastwatch. Everyone here will know his face before morning.”

“That’s more of a comfort than you can possibly know.”

“To be fair, we don’t just let civilians through this gate anyway.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But I’m going to recommend that he not be allowed through any of the other crossings under our control either.”

“Doing that won’t get you in trouble?”

“No, we do it pretty often, actually.” Edd shook his head, fishing around in his pocket. After a moment he held out a business card to her. “I want you to take my card. If anything happens in Hardhome while Jon’s up at Castle Black next week, or if you change your mind about pressing charges, you can call me. Having someone in the Night’s Watch you aren’t related to might come in handy.”

“You know,” Sansa began, “for someone who doesn’t want me thanking him you keep doing praise-worthy things.”

“Just don’t tell those two,” he insisted, gesturing out into the bay when he moved to open the door. “And get yourself some earplugs.”

Sansa frowned, tilting her head in confusion. Slowly, the corners of Edd’s mouth quirked up in a way that might almost be considered a smile. He leaned toward her, and the next words he spoke were said in an exaggerated, conspiratorial whisper.

“Tormund’s snoring could wake a hibernating bear.”

She was still laughing, cheerily relating the story of Tormund snoring on their drive from Last Hearth, when they got back to the SUV. Jon and Tormund had just finished lowering the vehicle back to ground level. Sansa was familiar with snow tires, having spent her entire life in the North, but the massive rubber wheels wrapped in heavy chains were even larger than what she was used to. She let Tormund help her into the back seat once more and scooted over behind the passenger seat to let him adjust the driver’s side for his longer legs. Jon stayed outside the car to talk to Edd for a few minutes before he joined them inside. Edd walked beside the SUV on a catwalk while they crawled toward the tunnel exit at a snail’s pace. She watched him wave for the second enormous set of gates to be opened, then couldn’t do much more than stare at what their opening revealed.

The road beyond was almost completely obscured by swirling drifts of snow. It stretched out for miles, broken only by a line of massive trees off to the left. In the distance, she thought she might have seen the shadow of an enormous elk before it disappeared into the trees. The whole sight was absolutely breathtaking. 

More important than the scenery, though, was the immediate loss of some of the tension that had been overtaking every inch of Sansa’s body from the moment she’d woken up with Jon’s hand over her mouth. Before them was the vast, empty stretch of the lands beyond The Wall. A place where Ramsay had no foothold. 

Sansa turned to watch the Eastwatch gate close behind them, relief settling over her as thick as the snow on the ground.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun had long since set, and Tormund was sick and fucking tired of being in the car. Jon was barely awake in the passenger seat. His friend was putting on a brave face, but Tormund knew he was hanging by a thread. The Greyjoy boy had tried to warn them. He’d tried to explain the extent of what Ramsay Bolton was capable of doing, and the way he twitched and shrank and stammered should have been more telling. Neither of them had gotten it then. The moment Sansa had looked up into his eyes beneath that street lamp was going to be burned into the back of his mind until the day he died. He could see it shining out from the back of her eyes: that damaged sense of self that wasn’t sure it was still allowed to hope. She was fighting against the voices in her head saying she didn’t deserve to get away just as hard as she was fighting to get out of that hell hole. 

For as long as she’d been under that fucker’s thumb, she still had it in her to stomp down the scared insistence that he would find her. She was getting beat that badly, controlled so much she had to sit exactly where he told her in a damn coffee shop, and she still managed to pack her things and keep all her hope hidden. The woman’s strength was nothing short of astounding.

She wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d thought to find a shattered version of the romance-obsessed young girl that Jon described from their childhood. A fragile woman would be understandable after all she’d been through, but Sansa was not as fragile as even she believed. She trembled and panicked, sure, but she was bold and bitingly sarcastic in the moments she managed to forget her anxieties. The two times he’d met Theon Greyjoy he could see that the man was still struggling to keep whatever Ramsay had conditioned him for at bay nearly every waking moment, but Sansa could already shove it aside long enough to give her brother grief. Like Jon, she’d been made to weather winter’s bitter storms. He was moderately certain she’d be a formidable wolf in her own right in less than a year.

He glanced up at the rear view mirror as he navigated the streets of Hardhome, waiting for the passing streetlights to illuminate the subject of his thoughts. Sansa was sprawled over the back seat sound asleep, curled in on herself beneath his coat. She’d barely made it until they were out of sight of Eastwatch’s gate before exhaustion overtook her. He’d expected that he’d want to take care of someone who meant so much to Jon. He hadn’t expected to enjoy her company, or to feel so instantly attached. 

That instant draw was why, when they finally pulled up in front of his house, he sent Jon inside to keep his girls and Ygritte quiet. He tucked his coat as tightly around Sansa as he could and lifted her into his arms. She turned into him in her sleep, pressing her face against the hollow of his throat. He carried her into the house and up the stairs to the spare bedroom Ygritte had helped get ready for her, mindful of her long legs dangling close to the wall when he maneuvered down the short upstairs hallway. As he laid her down on the bed, stepping back so Jon could bring the covers he’d turned down to cover Sansa’s legs, Tormund had only one thought.

He was so fucked.


End file.
